


upside down and tipping over

by okamiwind



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, M/M, Magical Realism, Multiple Realities, Strangers to Lovers, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:41:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22701157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okamiwind/pseuds/okamiwind
Summary: if you stare through the water, you might look long enough to see someone on the other side
Relationships: Kim Junmyeon | Suho/Oh Sehun
Comments: 54
Kudos: 142





	upside down and tipping over

**Author's Note:**

  * For [electrickissu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/electrickissu/gifts).



Junmyeon lives in the middle of the red bamboo woods, and for all of his life, the forest has been his only friend. 

He was born to guard the forest, and only a few other witches have visited him over the years, not staying nearly long enough to love them or even know them. 

He built his home when he was old enough to cast the spells, strong red reeds stacked and tied with sunset-colored fiddlefern rope to make the floor and the walls. There is a river that runs through the forest, and Junmyeon fetches his water from it, snapping his fingers to make it clean enough to drink. 

He has at least a dozen chickens, two goats, and a couple rabbits in pens. He keeps the chickens for their eggs and their meat, the goats for their milk, and the rabbits because he loves them so dearly. Whenever they’re to be brushed and groomed, however, he keeps their fur, waving it into braids for his knitting. 

In the mornings, he wakes, frying two eggs over the fire and sprinkling them with salt. He makes bread from the bamboo rice, and when he toasts it nicely with butter, he thinks that there must be no greater pleasure in life. He tends to his animals, gathers enough water and food to keep himself afloat, and then, every day, he explores the woods. 

There is never anything new, never any trouble or threat, but he’s afraid that on the day he decides not to, that’s precisely when something amazing will arrive. Each day, he returns to his home with a smattering of low-lying herbs and medicinal plants that he brews into potions. He knits by the fire in the evening, and when the sun finally sets, he retires to his bed, the red wood of the bamboo bright in his vision even when he closes his eyes. 

Nothing ever changes, and that’s exactly how Junmyeon likes it. 

He tells himself he likes it this way because he doesn’t see it ever changing.  
  


⚊

He’s got his arm looped through his basket, and he is dancing his way through the wood, as he is wont to do in the mid-morning hours. The orange ferns at his feet tickle his toes, his ankles, and he crouches down to pick up a few stems of bisinate, the flowers white and spotted with red at the very center. They’re very pretty flowers, and quite rare, too. The bamboo tends to choke out everything else, tends to get rid of everything besides the fiddlefern and the grass. New reeds sprout up every sunrise, and even when he cuts some down, it never makes a difference. The bamboo surges, builds, rises.

Junmyeon grabs as many bisinate flowers as he can manage to get, roots and all, hoping that he can transplant some into the house. Not all of the plants take, but it helps to be able to re-home some of them so that they can survive. Plus, it livens up the home, the flowers making everything just a little bit prettier. Junmyeon likes that. He likes pretty things. 

Just as the thought pushes into his head, he turns and immediately collides with someone strong and sturdy. 

Another person.

 _Another person_ , Junmyeon panics. 

Junmyeon steps back, alarmed, and he stares up at a man. A _beautiful_ man, tall with handsome features. Dressed so funnily. The black fabric that is draped over his top half is swallowing him up, big and warm looking, and his pants are vibrant blue and stiff. He’s wearing coverings on his feet, large and colorful, and Junmyeon looks him up and down, confused. 

“Who are you?” Junmyeon asks. “What are you doing here, you strange boy?” 

“I don’t know,” he answers. “I don’t know where I am.” 

“Well, go home! This is my forest,” Junmyeon says quickly, hurriedly, angrily, waving until a flock of black birds fly out from under his arms. “I am the witch that lives here. Don’t come back, do you understand? Don’t come back!” 

The man’s eyes, brown and warm, go wide, and he runs in the opposite direction so fast that Junmyeon barely has the chance to register his form going from big to small. He takes Junmyeon’s warning, flees with it, and Junmyeon frowns as he thinks _Good, I’ve done my duty. Good, I prefer it this way._

He goes back home when the sun is high overhead, and when he works, when cooks, when he eats, when he drinks, when he puts out the fire, when he curls into bed, all he can think about is the curious man that appeared in the wood, the curious man that left without even telling Junmyeon his name. How did he get here? How did he find Junmyeon? Where did he go? 

The questions go unanswered in the bamboo forest, but when Junmyeon tries to close his eyes in the dark red night, all he can see is the look of fear in the man’s eyes and all he can hear are the footsteps, _pat, pat, pat, pat._  
  


⚊

The hens cluck as the morning rises, and Junmyeon throws back his covers. With a snap of his fingers, he parts the curtains, lets the sun in. It is another beautiful day, as they all are, but sleep did not come to him as it normally does. He tossed, turned, thought of the boy with the scared eyes and the funny clothes.

When he opens his door, the man is there, and he looks much less scared than before. Junmyeon, however, feels a zip of fear jolt through him like a lightning storm. 

“I-I told you to go,” Junmyeon says. “What are you doing?” 

“I thought I was going crazy,” the man says, “but it’s real. Holy shit, it’s real.” 

“W-What?” 

“This place,” he says. “The red forest. You. The witch.” 

“Y-Yes, of course I’m real,” Junmyeon says, and he folds his arms across his chest. “What else would I be?” 

“I don’t know,” he says, and he looks around him as if he is trying to commit it all to memory. “Something different. A dream, I guess.” 

Junmyeon feels a little piece of ice chip off his heart and fall into the water with a crash. 

“Well, it isn’t a dream,” Junmyeon says. “You’re in my woods.” 

“Yeah.” 

Junmyeon stares at the man as he looks around, and after a moment more of that, Junmyeon stomps his foot. “You’re _in_ my _woods_.” 

“I know,” he says. “Isn’t that buckwild?” 

Junmyeon frowns. “What?” 

“Buckwild,” he says. “Like absolutely fuckin’ nutso.” 

Junmyeon frowns deeper. “Speak clearly, human.” 

“It’s just, like, surreal,” he smiles before shaking his head like he is clearing cobwebs from between his ears. “I-I’m Sehun.” 

He continues to grin brightly as he offers Junmyeon his hand. Junmyeon isn’t sure what to do with it, so he turns, plucks a bisinate flower from the stem, and he puts it into Sehun’s hand. 

“O-Oh, I was just going for a handsh—, you know what, this is good too,” he says, and he clutches the flower to his chest. “It’s nice to meet you.” 

“Go home,” Junmyeon says. “You are not welcome here.” 

“You gave me a flower,” Sehun says. “Is that not, like, a sign of welcome?” 

“N-No,” Junmyeon stutters. “It’s not a sign of anything, I just—” 

“You just?” 

“I don’t know!” Junmyeon says furiously, but when he spreads his arms, a hundred butterflies flood out. Heat blooms across Junmyeon’s face as he shoos them all away, Sehun and the butterflies, and he closes the door behind him before sticking his head out the window, shouting at Sehun. “Go away, and don’t come back!” 

“All right,” Sehun says with a wry little smile. “But I can’t make any promises.” 

Junmyeon doesn’t come out of the house until he is sure that Sehun is gone, and even then, Junmyeon still feels his presence, the scent of Sehun unfamiliar and strange, hanging in the air.  
  


⚊

Junmyeon stands before the door the following morning debating whether or not to open it at all. He has plenty of food inside. The animals will be fine for a day.

“Open up,” Sehun says, knocking against the bamboo to make it ring. “I’m here.” 

Junmyeon curses quietly as his stomach twists inside him, and he tries to think of ways to escape. 

“I know you’re just standing there,” Sehun says, voice entirely too knowing. 

Junmyeon scowls as he opens the door, revealing Sehun in a different, but no less peculiar outfit, the materials and colors so foreign to Junmyeon’s eyes. 

“Good morning,” Sehun says. 

“Good morning,” Junmyeon greets sternly. 

“I know you told me not to come back,” Sehun says, “but I had to ask you a question.” 

Junmyeon narrows his eyes as he takes a step back from the threshold. Humans are greedy, he’s been told. The witches made sure to tell him that... they’re always looking for something for themselves.

“And what question might that be?” he asks, starch stiffening his spine. 

“Your name,” Sehun smiles. “I never got it.” 

It catches Junmyeon off guard. He thought… he thought he would ask about _magic_. Perhaps potions or curses, hexes or spells… some kind of magic. Certainly not something about Junmyeon, let alone something so inconsequential. 

“M-My name?” 

“Do you have one?” Sehun asks. “Or should I just call you Witch?” 

“My name is Junmyeon,” he says easily, the words slipping out before he could think to stop them. “I—” 

“Do you get many visitors?” Sehun asks. 

“No,” he says dumbly, so thoughtlessly honest now. 

“Would you like it if I came back tomorrow?” 

Junmyeon beholds Sehun, with his face open and vulnerable and happy, and he could not ever lie. 

“Yes,” he confesses. 

“Then I’ll come back,” Sehun says, and he gives a little wave of his hand. “Maybe you could show me around the forest.” 

“Yes,” Junmyeon whispers. “Maybe.” 

Junmyeon stands in the open doorway until Sehun is totally out of sight, and for long, long after, wondering what this human could be looking for, what he seeks to gain.  
  


⚊

Sehun is sitting on the small bench by the fire pit when Junmyeon emerges the following morning, and he gives another little wave as if to greet Junmyeon. Junmyeon sits beside him, a healthy amount of distance between them. It is very silent in the morning, the walls of red bamboo thick around them. Nothing to disturb the quiet except for his own thoughts.

“Did you sleep well?” Sehun asks. “O-Or is that not a thing witches do?” 

“W-We sleep,” Junmyeon says, and he squints. “What kind of creature would not sleep?” 

“I don’t think deer sleep… and like, mythical creatures, I don’t think vampires sleep either.” 

“What is a vampire?” Junmyeon asks. 

“It drinks blood,” Sehun answers. 

“And a deer?” 

“You’ve never seen a deer?” 

“I have lived all my days in the forest,” Junmyeon answers. “The only things I know are the forest.” 

“But you’ve got animals,” Sehun says. “You’ve got bunnies.” 

“They were gifts from the visiting witches.” 

“Like, your friends?” 

“I don’t have any friends,” Junmyeon says. 

“I’m here!” Sehun says, and Junmyeon gives him an unimpressed look. “Fine, fine. God, a deer. I don’t know. I’ve never had to describe a deer to anyone before. A weird little horse? Christ, I don’t know, that sounds insane.” 

Junmyeon tries to imagine it, but finds the picture unsatisfying. “It matters not. I slept well.” He looks at Sehun, the smile on his face, and for some reason, it makes Junmyeon’s stomach clench. “A-And you? Did you rest well?” 

“I did,” Sehun nods. “But I have to admit that I was kinda nervous.” 

“Why were you nervous?” 

“Thought maybe you’d try to send me away again,” Sehun says, and he holds a hand up to his heart. “There’s only so many rejections a man can take, especially when the rejections are coupled with a murder of crows to chase me away.”

Junmyeon looks down, face flooding with heat yet again. “I apologize.” 

“I get it,” Sehun says. “You’re supposed to, like, what, watch over the forest? Some kind of guardian?” 

“Yes,” Junmyeon says. “I watch over the forest. I protect it.” 

“You speak for the trees,” Sehun says. 

“What?” 

“Never mind,” Sehun smiles. “I think I get it. You’re… you’re like a _kami_ or something.” 

“What?” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Sehun says, shaking his head happily. “Can I get the tour?” 

Junmyeon blinks. “Yes, I suppose.” He raises an arm. “This is the forest.” He points back to his house. “That’s my home.” 

“I know you’ve never had a visitor before, but you are not good at this,” Sehun says. 

“Are you hungry?” Junmyeon asks. “I could cook you breakfast.” 

Sehun’s eyes light up, and Junmyeon gets to work.  
  


⚊

He fries the eggs like always, but with Sehun watching, he accidentally breaks some of the yolks. He takes the broken ones for himself, giving Sehun the handsomer plate, fiddleferns fried in butter and dusted with salt and pepper laid over a bed of rice, two pieces of thick toast. He watches with delight as Sehun tucks in, looking away when Sehun moans in satisfaction.

“I’ve never had an egg taste so good,” Sehun says, and he dips the corner of his toast into the yolk before crunching into it. “Magic eggs are amazing.” 

“They aren’t magic, they’re just normal eggs,” Junmyeon chides. 

“Then, maybe you’re just a very good cook,” Sehun smiles, and he nudges his shoulder into Junmyeon’s. “Thank you.” 

Junmyeon feels silly and stupid with all of the touching, all of the closeness, so he quickly stands, walks over to put his dishes into his bucket for washing. “Would you like to see the river?” 

“Yes,” Sehun says. 

Junmyeon leads him there, and Sehun asks no questions, seemingly content after breakfast. Junmyeon is happy for the moment to think, but after that, he can’t quiet the questions in his head. 

“How did you get to this place?” Junmyeon asks, and he walks so close to Sehun that he nearly bumps into him. “I’ve never seen a human. I’ve never seen anything besides another witch.” 

“I fell through the river,” Sehun says. “I don’t know… I don’t know how.” 

“I suppose it was quite easy,” Junmyeon says. “You tipped over and you fell in.” 

“Not _that_ ,” Sehun laughs. “I mean, I don’t know how I got _here_ from _there_.” 

“It had… it had to do with the river?” Junmyeon asks, and he looks to the water’s surface.

“I think so.” 

Junmyeon looks back at Sehun, tilting his head to the side. “So you are from the upside down place?” 

“I think _you’re_ from the upside down place,” Sehun says, furrowing his brow. 

“Go back to the right side up, then,” Junmyeon says, and he folds his arms across his chest. “I don’t want you here.” 

“All right,” Sehun says. “Fine. Fine, I won’t come back, and you can be lonely if you want.” 

Something tugs at Junmyeon’s chest, but he doesn’t let it control him, refuses to let it dictate what he says, what he does. Especially when he’s dealing with a human. 

“I don’t want that,” Junmyeon admits. “It’s been very hard being alone.” 

“I can imagine.” 

Junmyeon looks at him, sees inimitable warmth in his eyes, in his spirit, the aura of him blue and shining with hope. Sehun smiles at him, reaches forward to brush his fingers through Junmyeon’s hair. It is a terribly wonderful moment, and Junmyeon squeezes his eyes shut tightly so that the magic doesn’t pour out of him against his will. 

By the time Junmyeon opens his eyes, Sehun is staring off into the distance. “Is that a bridge up there?” 

“Yes,” Junmyeon says. 

“Can we go see it?” 

Junmyeon leads them off. It is not long before they are standing before the little bridge Junmyeon built himself. Junmyeon crosses halfway, and Sehun follows. They stand on it together, staring down at their reflection. 

“This place is very beautiful,” Sehun says quietly. 

“Thank you,” Junmyeon says. 

“It gets harder to leave every day.” 

Junmyeon looks at him, frowns. “W-Why do you say these things to me?” 

“Because I want you to know how I feel,” Sehun says. 

“What are you… what are you trying to get from me?” Junmyeon asks. “Are you trying to steal my magic from me?” 

“No,” Sehun says, and even leveled with such accusations, he smiles, soft, blue, and lovely. “No, I’m not.” 

“Then what?” 

He turns his body to face Junmyeon, and Junmyeon instinctively turns. Sehun takes Junmyeon’s face in his hands, thumbs brushing against Junmyeon’s cheeks. Junmyeon gasps as the magic leaks out of him unbidden, the water of the river rising to lap at their ankles, flooding the earth around them, flowers blooming around the crown of Junmyeon’s hair, behind his ears. 

Sehun bites his lip before he closes the gap between them, and Junmyeon lets himself be led into the kiss, a gentle press of their lips together. It lasts for little more than a blink of his eyes, but when Sehun drags himself away from Junmyeon, he is still holding Junmyeon’s face in his hands as if he is something too precious to let go. 

Junmyeon stares up into Sehun’s eyes, stars dancing between them. Junmyeon has never felt anything like the surge of energy through his body, powerful magic welling like tears in his eyes. 

“Can I come back tomorrow?” Sehun asks. 

“Yes,” Junmyeon answers, clearing his throat to answer a bit more deliberately. “Yes, please.”  
  


⚊

Sehun visits almost every day. Together, they journey through the wood. Together, they harvest the herbs and the spices. Junmyeon shows Sehun how to care for the chickens and the goats, how to brush the bunnies. They take a special liking to Sehun, though Junmyeon can’t say for certain whether or not that’s because they are happy to see someone new. They fish under the hot red sun, they cook and eat and tell stories, and at night, when Sehun returns to the river, they kiss goodbye.

After they part, Sehun always asks if he’s permitted to return, and Junmyeon always grants him that permission. 

Each day is sweeter than the last. 

After two weeks, though, Junmyeon is desperate for new ways to entertain him. 

“You don’t have to try to keep me busy,” Sehun says, and he keeps his chin in his hands as he watches Junmyeon stir at his pot, bubbling and gold. “I just like watching you work. It’s fascinating.” 

“It’s boring,” Junmyeon says. “You’ve seen everything now. I’ve got… I’ve got nothing interesting to show you. You’ll stop coming.” 

“And that terrifies you, doesn’t it?” 

Junmyeon keeps his eyes on his work, but he can feel Sehun approach, his arms wrapping around Junmyeon’s waist. They’ve touched so much now, but it still takes a great deal of focus to keep the magic wrapped up inside him. 

“I’ll always stay right here,” Sehun says. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be.” 

Junmyeon can’t believe that, not when he’s so beautiful, not when he’s so charming and good. 

He accompanies Sehun to the river that evening the same way he always does, and Sehun licks into Junmyeon’s mouth, kissing him hard with a hand on the back of his neck to keep him there. It is the kind of passion Junmyeon has never tasted before, but it makes the waters rise within him, makes the red reeds around them shake within a windstorm. 

Sehun looks so satisfied when he pulls back, and when he lays his body in the river, he smiles up at Junmyeon, asks “Can I come back tomorrow?” 

“Yes,” Junmyeon says. “Please return to me.” 

Junmyeon blinks, and after that, Sehun is gone.  
  


⚊

Junmyeon isn’t used to keeping track of time, but Sehun makes him want to. He counts the days since Sehun’s arrival, counts every kiss. They laze in the sun, hand in hand, and Sehun tells him stories of home, family, and friends.

“They’d really like you,” Sehun says. “I… I just know it. If you could meet them, ah, they’d get why I’m so happy.” 

“I would like to see them someday,” Junmyeon whispers. “I would like to meet them.” 

Sehun rolls over in the grass, and Junmyeon rolls to meet him. 

“Do you know if you can leave?” Sehun asks, eyes bright. 

“I am meant to stay here,” Junmyeon says. 

“You’re trapped.” 

“No. But this is my place.” 

“W-Well, how is that fair?” Sehun says, only just keeping the pout off of his lips. “My place… my place can’t be by your side?” 

“You are here every day,” Junmyeon says. 

“But it’s not my home.” 

“Is home not more than where you sleep?” Junmyeon challenges. 

“Shut up,” Sehun says, and he squeezes Junmyeon’s hand in his. 

“If that’s what you desire,” Junmyeon says. 

“No,” Sehun says. “No, I—that’s not what I want at all.” He shuts his eyes. “Talk to me.” 

“I am at home when I am with you,” Junmyeon says. “When I am thinking of you. Your memory, your spirit, your soul… it is all I need to be home.” He reaches out with his free hand, brushing his fingertip down the bridge of Sehun’s nose, down the center of his lips, down his neck. “Time stops, place does not exist, not so long as I am with you.” 

He opens his eyes, and Junmyeon leans forward to kiss him, there in the soft scarlet grass. 

“Do you love me?” Sehun asks.

“If this is not love, then what is?” Junmyeon asks. 

“I think I’ll spend as long as I can here,” Sehun says, voice strangely tight. “Because I love you. Because I want to be with you.” 

“I wish I could go with you,” Junmyeon says. “Wish I could follow you to your home.” 

Sehun scoffs, a tear slipping down his face. “Don’t be stupid. You’re my home, too.”  
  


⚊

After that, it gets harder and harder to resist the overwhelming urge to peek into the other world. He wants to see where Sehun comes from, wants to walk among the humans. If everyone is as good as Sehun, then Junmyeon wants to see the utopia, wants to see the kind of world they built from the earth. What wonders must they revere? What powers inherent to their humanity must they yield?

“Still with the visiting thing?” Sehun asks, and he picks a lovelock, pushing the stem behind Junmyeon’s ear before kissing him sweetly. “I swear, it was just a momentary weakness. It really isn’t that deep.” 

“It pains me to see you longing for something,” Junmyeon says. “I want to go. I want to see the things you want to show me.” 

“Use your imagination,” Sehun smiles. “If you have to stay here, if I can’t show you, then I’ll just tell you everything you want to know.” 

“Tell me the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten,” Junmyeon says, and he wraps his arms around Sehun’s neck, pulls him into another kiss. 

“No,” Sehun says. “You’ll get upset.” 

“I won’t be jealous that it isn’t my cooking,” Junmyeon smiles. “I just want to hear of your world.” 

“You’re not gonna get upset because it _isn’t_ your cooking, but because it _is_ ,” Sehun says, and the words move along Junmyeon’s lips. “Sorry to disappoint.”  
“You have never disappointed me yet,” Junmyeon says. “Not yet.” 

Sehun smirks before he takes Junmyeon in a blistering kiss, one that speaks of promises unfulfilled, dreams not yet realized. 

“I hope I never do,” Sehun says, and he takes Junmyeon by the hand, leading him back to the house as if he was born in the middle of the forest the way Junmyeon was. “Now, come on. The sun is setting, and I really want fish fingers.”  
  


⚊

He takes Sehun into his bed on the 151st night, and they bring each other a new sort of pleasure, no less beautiful than all the ones prior. He moans Sehun’s name into his mouth, kisses marks into Sehun’s skin and wonders if they will stay when he travels home. He rocks himself against the wet warmth, lets it seep under his skin until the flowers blossom in his hair, until their petals fall onto Sehun in a rainstorm.

“I love you,” Sehun says. “I love you, I—” 

Junmyeon cries out, the swelling lust and ardor enough to make him soak the forest a hundred times over. They crash, crash, crash, and in Junmyeon’s ears, he hears the sound of Sehun’s sneakers against the forest floor. _Pat, pat, pat, pat._

He rests in Sehun’s arms until it is time to go, the sun setting around them. 

He sends Sehun away that evening the same way he always does, with a kiss, with Sehun’s question and Junmyeon’s answer. He guides Sehun to the water and blinks him away, but when he opens his eyes, he feels a tugging in his heart, an awful pull that makes him want to follow where Sehun leads. 

Curious, Junmyeon dips his toe into the water, but he feels no magic, no such drag into the bottom of the river. _Maybe Sehun was right all along_ , Junmyeon thinks, smiling. _Maybe this is the upside down place._  
  


⚊

The next morning, Sehun doesn’t arrive. It’s unlike him. It makes Junmyeon nervous. _Maybe he’s just busy,_ Junmyeon thinks. _Maybe nothing is wrong at all. Maybe I am overreacting._

The day turns into days, and Junmyeon feels helpless as he sits in his little red house in the middle of his little red forest. He counts each sun as it rises and falls, the forest a cage for him and him alone. 

Panicked and desperate, he runs to the river at noon on the seventh day. He doesn’t see anything, doesn’t hear anything. Just the terrible red silence, unsplit. Fresh and bright like new blood. 

“Sehun,” he calls, hoping that Sehun will jump out from behind a stalk and smile at him, take Junmyeon in his arms and tell him that it was all just a terrible joke. “ _Sehun._ ” 

Immediately, he follows Sehun’s footsteps, laying his body in the water. He waits, waits, waits, but nothing happens. The magic doesn’t work on witches, he reminds himself. He’s trapped. 

He cries into the river, makes the forest flood over and over again. 

He counts the suns as he rests in the river that he turns into an ocean. One, two, three, four. _Pat, pat, pat, pat._ He remembers the sounds of Sehun’s footsteps. Five, six, seven, eight. _Pat, pat, pat, pat._ Remembers his laugh. 24, 25, 26, 27. _Pat, pat, pat, pat._ Remembers the way he always asked. 156, 157, 158, 159. _Pat, pat, pat, pat._ Remembers the way he looked after they kissed. 341, 342, 343, 344. _Pat, pat, pat, pat._

 _Remember the way Sehun could have had anything he wanted, anyone in the whole world,_ he thinks. _Remember how he wanted to show you everything? Remember the way he looked after he said that you were trapped?_

_Like he wanted to free you?_

_Pat, pat, pat, pat._

_He’s gone. You ruined it._

_Pat, pat, pat, pat._  
  


⚊

In an endless life, rare spots of brilliant blue are eventually lost in the sea of grey. The forest falls to ruin, and Junmyeon’s life feels like it should be over, work at its end. He’s failed. The bamboo is blighted, rotten and yellow, and the red forest drops to the wet earth, eaten and consumed by mold.

He rests, eyes closed, lets the evil do what it pleases, but eventually, he rises, and so too does the red forest. It builds itself back from the water, and the orange fiddlefern, the scarlet grass comes back too. He rights himself, allows himself to move forward. 

The forest’s rise and fall, it means nothing to him anymore. 

He never stops counting. Never forgets.  
  


⚊

On the 19,562nd day, he is standing over his fire, adjusting the logs, and he hears movement through the river. There is only one person it could be. There has never been another wading through those waters.

“Junmyeon.” 

Terrified and hopeful, Junmyeon turns, and there… there he is. 

He is just as young as the day he arrived, but he is not wearing his peculiar clothes of the past, sweatshirts and jeans and sneakers. No, on the 19,562nd day since his disappearance, Sehun is wearing nothing at all, dripping with river water and smiling at Junmyeon breathlessly. 

Tears leap to Junmyeon’s eyes, angry, confused, _elated_ tears, and they spill down his face as he walks to the river, walks over to the man who left him on his own after giving him the taste of forever. 

“What are you doing here?” Junmyeon asks, unable to see through his tears. “Go away. I am the witch of this forest, and I demand you _leave_.” 

“Junmyeon, I’ve waited so long to see you,” Sehun smiles. “Come here.” He opens his arms, and Junmyeon’s eyes go to his chest, his stomach striped with muscle. “I want to hold you again.” 

A wine-colored storm brews overhead as the anger overpowers everything else inside him, as the magic swirls within. 

“Don’t,” Junmyeon says, “don’t you dare.” 

“I wanted to come back,” Sehun says. “Every single day, I wanted to come back to you.” 

Still, after so long, it makes him giddy with desire. Still, after so long, he loves Sehun. Loves him because he is home. 

“Then, what took you so long?” he asks. 

“It didn’t work,” Sehun says. “I couldn’t come back. The river wouldn’t let me anymore.” 

“H-How did you get here, then?” Junmyeon asks. “How are you in this world now?” 

“I am here to stay.” 

“Stop it,” Junmyeon says. “Don’t make promises that you don’t intend to keep.” 

“I prayed every day,” Sehun says, and when Junmyeon wipes away the tears from his face, he sees that Sehun is smiling so brightly, like it is the best day of his life. “Every single morning and every single night that we were apart, I prayed. I prayed that we could spend the next eternity together. That I could come here. That I could stay with you.” 

Junmyeon bites his lip. He’s never prayed before, but he starts then. _I pray this isn’t a dream. I pray that he is real before me. I pray that he will stay._

“A-And now?” 

“And when I was ready to go to the next life, I was brought to you,” Sehun says, holding out his hands until Junmyeon steps into the water, until they are intertwined once more. “I was always meant to love you.” Junmyeon rests his head on Sehun’s chest, and he hears nothing but the gales of wind whipping through the bamboo wood. “It took me a while to get here. Don’t hate me for that.” 

“Never,” Junmyeon says. “I could never hate you. Not when I love you so much.” 

Sehun puts his fingers through Junmyeon’s hair, and he makes the flowers bloom. Junmyeon tilts his head back, looks into Sehun’s eyes, and he sees magic, oh, _magic_. 

“It’s good to hear those words after so many years,” Sehun whispers, so Junmyeon says them over and over again, the beautiful refrain.

_I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you._  
  


⚊

Sehun wakes the next morning, and he has the magic within him. Junmyeon can tell. He can sense the spirit, the aura.

“Don’t be silly,” Sehun says. “You are the witch. I am entirely comfortable just living in awe of you.” 

“Snap your fingers, and think of the wind,” Junmyeon commands. 

He kisses Sehun, licks along his lips, and when Sehun obeys, the gale flutters the curtains so mightily that they fall from the windows. It shocks Sehun out of the embrace, mouth hanging open as he looks as what he’s done, what he’s managed to do. 

Junmyeon smiles at the look on Sehun’s face, the look of _astonishment_ painting him. 

“Now, we can live in awe of each other,” Junmyeon says, knowing now for certain that magic shared is magic multiplied.

**Author's Note:**

> u like witchy jun, u get witchy jun. happy valentine's day, my love ♡
> 
> [my twitter](https://twitter.com/okamiwind) | [my curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/okamiwind)


End file.
